Plan International is an NGO that works in Asia, Africa and the Americas to tackle child poverty and deprivation. In Vietnam, it is taking an integrated approach to childhood development that focuses on health and sanitation as well as education. Having successfully worked to provide universal primary school education, the Vietnamese government is now improving access to preschool. Provision is still uneven, so Plan is focusing its efforts on providing preschool education to children from remote areas, or less affluent backgrounds.

It also focuses on the lack of bilingual education. Sven Coppens, its Vietnam programme director, says that in a country where 15% of the population comes from over 50 ethnic minority communities, language is a major dividing factor. “Officially the language of instruction is Vietnamese, but you have children coming in with another maternal language, and there is not enough priority given to setting up systems of bilingual education.” Plan targets these ethnic minorities, providing them with instruction in both languages, so that they are fully bilingual by the time they reach the age of seven. It has adopted a model that involves bringing parents into the classroom and assisting the teacher or telling stories in their maternal language.

The biggest issue, says Mr Coppens, is pedagogical: “The Vietnamese education system has traditionally been a top-down system of instruction; rather than seeing education as a transformative power in society.” To get away from the rote learning that still predominates, Plan is introducing schoolteachers, managers and district officials to more child-centred learning methodologies.